Art news – weekly round up

Pablo Picasso, Still Life Under the Lamp, 1962

Picasso prints

Two sets of linocuts by Pablo Picasso, made when the artist was 80, have been acquired by British Museum with help from the Art Fund. The unique sets contain not only the finished works, but also the progressive proofs showing the step-by-step process. As reported in The Guardian, curator Stephen Coppel says ‘It is incredibly exciting, the two sets of linocut proofs show Picasso's creative process step by step. You really do feel like you're looking over Picasso's shoulders as he is working on these incredible images.’

The mastery of Ming

A new exhibition at the British Museum Ming: 50 years that changed China will open in September, displaying the incredible cultural influence of the early Ming dynasty, a golden age of Chinese history when the country became a global superpower. According to James Pickford at the Financial Times 10 Chinese institutions and 21 international lenders have loaned objects from their collections, including a seven metre-long painted scroll showing seasonal scenes of court life, which has never been seen in public before.

Lacock Cup

A silver medieval chalice donated to the Church of St. Cyriac in Lacock more than 400 years ago has been jointly acquired by the British Museum and Wiltshire Museum, after a successful appeal that received contributions from the Art Fund. The Guardian’s Maev Kennedy explains how rare it is to find an example of secular 15th century silver, meaning that the cup has been deemed so valuable, it is impossible to insure.

Heritage bid

The Lake District, England’s largest national park, has been nominated for World Heritage status. The Telegraph reports that if the bid to UN heritage body UNESCO in 2016 is successful, it will join Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon in the US as sites designated with outstanding value to the world.

And finally...

The owners of a tourist attraction dubbed the 'world's worst waxworks' has sold the entire collection to a single buyer in the Czech Republic. As reported in The Telegraph Jane and Peter Hayes had been running the Louis Tussauds House of Wax in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, for 58 years.